High Tide Of Discounts As Cruise Lines Seek To Fill Excess Cabin

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Cruise lines have a mighty big selling job to do this year, especially in the Caribbean where 6 new ships in a 10-month span will add an additional 5,000 berths to the already glutted fleet.

You might get the feeling that vacationers are standing in line to take a cruise with all this added capacity. However, less than 5 percent of vacationing Americans have ever taken a cruise. The cruise lines are working hard to change this by promoting cruises as an idyllic vacation and by offering would-be passengers deals.

For travelers looking for a vacation at sea, the outlook is encouraging because virtally every line offers incentives or discounts. For example:

-- Princess Cruises of ``Love Boat`` fame is offering a discount of $250 a person off the regular fare on several Panama Canal sailings.

-- Sitmar Cruises provides free air fare plus up to $250 in savings a couple for booking six months in advance and an $800 a couple discount on Trans-Canal and Mexico sailings.

-- Costa Cruises advertises a $200 a cabin discount and free round-trip air fare for sailings on the Carla Costa and Daphne.

-- Home Lines is promoting $300 off on 9 to 14-day cruises and $500 off on 16-day cruises in the Caribbean.

-- Premier Cruise Lines, billed as the official cruise line of Walt Disney World, gives away a ``full three-day Walt Disney World Vacation`` with its four-night cruise to the Bahamas.

-- Holland America offers savings up to $600 a couple who book Trans-Canal sailings for spring and fall before Feb. 1.

There is no doubt that a cruise vacation is one of the best buys on the market today. Most cruise lines provide free round-trip air fare to the port as well as transfers to and from the ship. Accommodations, of course, meals, entertainment and activities are free. The only extras are bar bills, tips, shopping and shore excursions if you choose to buy a tour, rather than devise your own.

Passengers have the opportunity to visit some exotic and not-so-exotic islands without having to pack and unpack every other night. They can eat at least four times a day aboard ship, dance until dawn and bake in the sun. The activities are as available as the bargains.

Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), a promotional organization representing 26 lines with more than 80 ships, has launched a campaign to push cruising. This year CLIA expects to educate 12,000 travel agents throughout the country with training seminars. It also publishes a booklet, ``Answers to the Most Asked Questions about Cruises,`` available by writing to CLIA, 17 Battery Pl., Suite 631, New York, N.Y. 10004, and enclosing an addressed, stamped, business-size envelope.

In addition to the cruise lines selling themselves, several suburban Chicago travel agencies such as Cruises International in Schaumburg and Oak Brook and Cruiseworld Ltd. in Glenview deal only in cruises. In recent years several firms have popped up to gather and consolidate unused cabins and block space from major cruise companies. In turn they sell the space at even deeper discounts than offered by cruise lines. South Florida Cruises based in Ft. Lauderdale and Spur of the Moment in California cater to bargain hunters.

The most recent to jump into the consumer market is The Cruise Line, Inc., based in Miami. The firm is involved in ``creative cruise marketing, packaging and market development.``

Cruise Line started as a wholesale company selling cruises to approximately 3,000 travel agents nationwide in June, 1983, explained Lawrence Fishkin, the firm`s president. Fishkin also has supplemented the cruise lines` marketing efforts by conducting seminars for travel agents.

But, he acknowledged, many travel agents in the smaller market areas do not know how to sell cruises. ``They don`t know the ships, the lines or the terminology.``

Fishkin said Cruise Line started selling to the public about six months ago through direct advertising. His firm also has helped charitable groups arrange fund-raising cruises.

``We hold and control our own blocks of space,`` explained Fishkin. ``We also look at ourselves as an information center and try to fit clients with the cruise product they want.``

What Cruise Line does is buy blocks of space on certain lines. By putting deposits on the space up front, thereby giving cruise lines a better cash flow, Fishkin is able to obtain ``group rates that can be 50 percent off, sometimes more.`` It`s the same principle that tour operators use when they purchase blocks of hotel rooms. When consumers buy package tours, they get their hotel rooms for much less than the rack rate, the price consumers pay when they walk in off the street. Fishkin applies the same principle.

``I generally buy from most of the cruise lines based on our knowledge of what is going to sell,`` Fishkin said. ``I buy quality space. There`s certain space I wouldn`t buy. I`m not in the business of making unhappy clients. That`s where the knowledge comes in.``